What does ENTROPY mean?

Definitions for ENTROPY
ˈɛn trə pien·tropy

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word ENTROPY.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. information, selective information, entropynoun

    (communication theory) a numerical measure of the uncertainty of an outcome

    "the signal contained thousands of bits of information"

  2. randomness, entropy, Snoun

    (thermodynamics) a thermodynamic quantity representing the amount of energy in a system that is no longer available for doing mechanical work

    "entropy increases as matter and energy in the universe degrade to an ultimate state of inert uniformity"

Wiktionary

  1. entropynoun

    A measure of the amount of information and noise present in a signal. Originally a tongue in cheek coinage, has fallen into disuse to avoid confusion with thermodynamic entropy.

  2. entropynoun

    The tendency of a system that is left to itself to descend into chaos.

  3. Etymology: First attested in 1868. From German Entropie, coined in 1865 by Rudolph Clausius, from ἐντροπία, from ἐν + τροπή.

Wikipedia

  1. Entropy

    Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynamics, where it was first recognized, to the microscopic description of nature in statistical physics, and to the principles of information theory. It has found far-ranging applications in chemistry and physics, in biological systems and their relation to life, in cosmology, economics, sociology, weather science, climate change, and information systems including the transmission of information in telecommunication.The thermodynamic concept was referred to by Scottish scientist and engineer William Rankine in 1850 with the names thermodynamic function and heat-potential. In 1865, German physicist Rudolf Clausius, one of the leading founders of the field of thermodynamics, defined it as the quotient of an infinitesimal amount of heat to the instantaneous temperature. He initially described it as transformation-content, in German Verwandlungsinhalt, and later coined the term entropy from a Greek word for transformation. Referring to microscopic constitution and structure, in 1862, Clausius interpreted the concept as meaning disgregation.A consequence of entropy is that certain processes are irreversible or impossible, aside from the requirement of not violating the conservation of energy, the latter being expressed in the first law of thermodynamics. Entropy is central to the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of isolated systems left to spontaneous evolution cannot decrease with time, as they always arrive at a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, where the entropy is highest. Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann explained entropy as the measure of the number of possible microscopic arrangements or states of individual atoms and molecules of a system that comply with the macroscopic condition of the system. He thereby introduced the concept of statistical disorder and probability distributions into a new field of thermodynamics, called statistical mechanics, and found the link between the microscopic interactions, which fluctuate about an average configuration, to the macroscopically observable behavior, in form of a simple logarithmic law, with a proportionality constant, the Boltzmann constant, that has become one of the defining universal constants for the modern International System of Units (SI). In 1948, Bell Labs scientist Claude Shannon developed similar statistical concepts of measuring microscopic uncertainty and multiplicity to the problem of random losses of information in telecommunication signals. Upon John von Neumann's suggestion, Shannon named this entity of missing information in analogous manner to its use in statistical mechanics as entropy, and gave birth to the field of information theory. This description has been identified as a universal definition of the concept of entropy.

ChatGPT

  1. entropy

    Entropy is a concept in thermodynamics, which refers to the degree of randomness, disorder, or chaos in a system. It's a measure of the energy in a system that is not available for work and increases over time in an isolated system, as stated by the second law of thermodynamics. In information theory, entropy refers to the rate at which information is produced by a stochastic source of data. In general, it is a measure of uncertainty or unpredictability.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Entropynoun

    a certain property of a body, expressed as a measurable quantity, such that when there is no communication of heat the quantity remains constant, but when heat enters or leaves the body the quantity increases or diminishes. If a small amount, h, of heat enters the body when its temperature is t in the thermodynamic scale the entropy of the body is increased by h / t. The entropy is regarded as measured from some standard temperature and pressure. Sometimes called the thermodynamic function

  2. Etymology: [Gr. a turning in; in + a turn, fr. to turn.]

Wikidata

  1. Entropy

    Entropy is a measure of the number of specific ways in which a system may be arranged, often taken to be a measure of disorder. The entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems spontaneously evolve towards thermodynamic equilibrium, which is the state of maximum entropy. Entropy is a thermodynamic quantity that helps to account for the flow of energy through a thermodynamic process. Entropy was originally defined for a thermodynamically reversible process as where the entropy is found from the uniform thermodynamic temperature of a closed system divided into an incremental reversible transfer of heat into that system. The above definition is sometimes called the macroscopic definition of entropy because it can be used without regard to any microscopic picture of the contents of a system. In thermodynamics, entropy has been found to be more generally useful and it has several other formulations. Entropy was discovered when it was noticed to be a quantity that behaves as a function of state. Entropy is an extensive property, but it is often given as an intensive property of specific entropy as entropy per unit mass or entropy per mole. In the modern microscopic interpretation of entropy in statistical mechanics, entropy is the amount of additional information needed to specify the exact physical state of a system, given its thermodynamic specification. The role of thermodynamic entropy in various thermodynamic processes can thus be understood by understanding how and why that information changes as the system evolves from its initial condition. It is often said that entropy is an expression of the disorder, or randomness of a system, or of our lack of information about it. The second law is now often seen as an expression of the fundamental postulate of statistical mechanics via the modern definition of entropy.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Entropy

    en′trop-i, n. a term in physics signifying 'the available energy.'

U.S. National Library of Medicine

  1. Entropy

    The measure of that part of the heat or energy of a system which is not available to perform work. Entropy increases in all natural (spontaneous and irreversible) processes. (From Dorland, 28th ed)

The Standard Electrical Dictionary

  1. Entropy

    Non-available energy. As energy may in some way or other be generally reduced to heat, it will be found that the equalizing of temperature, actual and potential, in a system, while it leaves the total energy unchanged, makes it all unavailable, because all work represents a fall in degree of energy or a fall in temperature. But in a system such as described no such fall could occur, therefore no work could be done. The universe is obviously tending in that direction. On the earth the exhaustion of coal is in the direction of degradation of its high potential energy, so that the entropy of the universe tends to zero. (See Energy, Degradation of.) [Transcriber's note: Entropy (disorder) INCREASES, while AVAILABLE ENERGY tends to zero.]

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Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of ENTROPY in Chaldean Numerology is: 5

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of ENTROPY in Pythagorean Numerology is: 5

Examples of ENTROPY in a Sentence

  1. Mickey Mehta:

    Choose fulfillment over trophy , don't leech away life always... embrace philanthropy & choose evolution over entropy . Going around is life's nature...let giving be the only culture . Let your giving be maximized , your returns will be optimized and you shall get Mickeymized

  2. Jeff Goldblum:

    I don’t know anything about what I’m talking about. But let’s utter the word ‘entropy’ and ‘systems’ and how things break down, before the butterfly comes out of the chrysalis, the caterpillar has some convulsions, chaotic convulsions. But it’s not death, necessarily. It’s the onset of transformation.

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"ENTROPY." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 Oct. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/ENTROPY>.

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    a defeat in which the losing person or team fails to score
    A ternion
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